Charles  H.  Davis 

N.  A. 


The  MACBETH  GALLERY 

450  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


[ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/thirtiethanniverOOmacb 


Thirtieth 
cAnniversary  Sxhibition 

i8g2 — ig22 


Paintings 

by 

Charles  H.  Davis,  n.a. 


The  MACBETH  GALLERY 

450  Fifth  Avenue  New  Yoik  City 


Copyright,  1922 
WILLIAM  MACBETH,  Inc. 


THE  CALL  ul'  i  i  iL-.  WLS  1  WIND 


Loaned  by  the  Butler  Art  Institute,  Youngstown, 
Ohio,  and  reproduced  through  the  courtesy  of  the 
Brown-Robertson  Co.,  who  own  the  copyright. 


oAcknowledQment  to 


Bartlett  Arkell,  Esq. 

C.  D.  Armstrong,  Esq. 

Dr.  T.  L.  Bennett 

Mrs.  C.  C.  Bovey 

Burr  R.  Brown,  Esq. 

Bruce  Art  Museum,  Greenwich,  Conn. 

Butler  Art  Institute,  Youngstown,  Ohio 

Mrs.  H.  A.  Everett 

B.  W.  Gage,  Esq. 

W.  J.  Johnson,  Esq. 

Walter  D.  Makepeace,  Esq. 

Burton  Mansfield,  Esq. 

Minneapolis  Institute  of  Arts 

H.  W.  Mitchell,  Esq. 

Charles  F.  Palmer,  Esq. 

Paul  Schulze,  Esq. 

Paul  Schulze,  Jr.,  Esq. 

David  Smyth,  Esq. 

William  J.  Stimmel,  Esq. 

whose  generous  cooperation  in 
lending  their  pictures  has  made 
this  exhibition  possible. 


The  following  appreciation  is  printed  by 
permission  of  INTERNATIONAL  Studio 
from  an  article  to  appear  in  an  early 
number 


Titles  of  the  Paintings 


J 

The  Haunted  House* 

.   I ox I 4 

2 

May  Morning  . 

34x42 

3 

Spring  Twilight* 

.   I OX 1 4 

4 

Drifting  Light* 

17x21 

5 

In  Early  May 

.  25x30 

6 

Wings  of  the  Wind  . 

36x31 

7 

Now  April's  Here 

.  25x30 

8 

The  First  Snow 

20x26 

Q 

Spring  on  the  Hillside 

.  20x36 

lO 

Joyous  Day  in  Spring 
Winter  Morning* 

20x36 

I  I 

.  17X21 

12 

The  Springtime* 

25X30 

13 

All  Hallowe'en 

.  40X50 

14 

Spring  Pastoral 

25X30 

I  5 

Autumn  Sunshine* 

.       I  7X2  I 

i6 

Grey  Brothers  . 

30X25 

I  7 

Early  Summer 

.  20X36 

i8 

Night  .... 

17X21 

"Bare  ruin'd  choirs,  where 

late 

the  sweet  birds  sang"* 

.  25x30 

20 

On  the  West  Wind  . 

2  I 

Golden  Moonlight 

.  25X30 

22 

Pastoral* 

20X27 

23 

Evening  Clouds* 

.  20X36 

V  y 

24 

The  Call  of  the  West  Wind 

40X50 

^5 

Clouds  at  Sunset 

.  29X36 

26 

Summer  Afternoon  . 

18X26 

^7 

The  Pool* 

.  25X30 

28 

A  Clearing 

34X42 

29 

Old  Pasture 

.  25X30 

30 

Little  Grey  Home* 

17X21 

31 

Passing  Summer 

.  29X36 

*These  examples  are  for  sale. 


GREY  BROTHERS 


Charles  H.  Davis^  N.A. 


cAn  Appreciation 


MERICA'S  place  in  contemporary  land- 


scape art  is  so  well  established  as  to 


make  more  than  a  passing  reference 
to  it  trite  and  unnecessary.  Critical  analy- 
ses in  great  number  are  readily  accessible  to 
the  student  of  the  work  of  the  best  men  of 
our  recent  past,  who,  during  the  closing  de- 
cades of  the  last  century,  established  a  land- 
scape school  that  we  and  those  who  follow 
us  may  always  reverence.  Inness,  Martin, 
Wyant,  Twachtman  and  Robinson  stand 
out  among  many  other  excellent  painters  as 
the  great  landmarks  of  our  art  of  their  time, 
and  the  years  that  have  passed  since  they 
left  us,  in  spite  of  "movements,"  "isms," 
and  "seisms,"  have  but  strengthened  our 
respect  for  them.  Pioneers  they  were,  blaz- 
ing a  trail  of  sanity  and  beauty  that  many 
since  have  tried,  with  more  or  less  success, 
to  follow. 

It  is  still  too  soon,  perhaps,  definitely  to 
know  who  of  their  successors  will  in  the  days 
to  come  be  ranked  with  them.  Perhaps  we 
have  some  who,  in  the  final  reckoning,  will 
be  placed  above  them.  We  are  still  too  close 
to  the  men  themselves,  to  the  individual 
idiosyncrasies  both  of  painter  and  painting, 
to  form  unbiased  estimates  of  current  work. 
The  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  is  to 
like  a  man's  creation  because  we  like  the 
man;  it  is  equally  human  conversely  to  dis- 
like. But  it  does  not  tend  to  a  fair  judg- 
ment of  the  work  as  art.  It  is  probably  true 
that  the  personalities  of  certain  men,  men 
with  an  inordinate  appreciation  of  their  own 


Charles  H.  Da^is,  N.  A. 


IN  MAY 


powers,  are  very  real  bars  to  a  proper  public 
acceptance  of  their  pictures;  and  many  a 
second  rate  picture  or  worse  has  been  favor- 
ably received  from  the  studio  of  an  artist 
well  loved  by  his  fellow  men.  No  one  is 
wholly  free  from  such  preconceptions,  how- 
ever strongly  he  may  strive  to  keep  them 
out  of  analytical  discussion.  And  so  it  is 
that  in  all  critiques  of  an  artist  at  close 
range,  we  must  recognize  the  probable  pres- 
ence of  the  personal  bias.  Time  alone,  long 
time,  with  its  sifting  perspective,  will  answer 
for  our  successors  the  problems  about  pres- 
ent-day work  that  confront  us  now. 

However  all  these  things  may  be,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  we  have  several  sterling  painters, 
artists  to  their  finger  tips,  whose  efforts  are 
leading  toward  the  definite  goal  of  real 
achievement.    It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this 


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11  1L£  SlM^ING  l  IML 


brief  article  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  who 
they  are,  why  they  are,  or  why  this  man  or 
that  is  not  included  in  the  list.  Each  of  a 
score  of  painters  can  rally  any  number  of 
staunch  supporters  to  his  claim  to  foremost 
place  in  the  ranks  of  men  still  producing. 
It  would  be  unprofitable  to  champion  the 
cause  of  one  against  another  in  such  a  non- 
productive debate. 

Probably  no  one  would  be  less  likely  to 
put  himself  forward  for  honors  of  this  sort 
than  Charles  H.  Davis.  Living  a  retiring 
and  studious  life  in  the  beautiful  surround- 
ings of  his  Connecticut  home,  he  is  quite 
content  to  work  out  his  own  salvation,  and 
to  let  time  decide  as  to  what  his  place  is  to 
be.  He  belongs  to  no  clique,  has  no  pet 
theories,  and  is  far  more  concerned  about 
the  production  of  works  of  art  than  in  a 


Charles  H.  Da^is,  N.  A. 


discussion  as  to  the  school  in  which  they 
shall  be  classified.  Occasionally  he  makes 
it  a  point  to  see  and  study  special  exhibitions 
both  in  New  York  and  elsewhere,  and  each 
of  his  excursions  to  the  city  is  never  con- 
sidered complete  without  a  few  hours  at 
least  in  the  company  of  the  masters  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum.  For  he  has  a  very 
vital  interest  in  the  best  work  of  the  past 
and  is  as  keen  a  student  of  the  Old  Masters 
as  of  the  creations  of  his  contemporaries. 
The  rest  of  the  year,  except  when  an  oc- 
casional art  jury  demands  his  service,  is 
spent  in  solving  his  own  problems  in  his  own 
way.  He  is  very  close  to  nature,  a  beautiful 
nature,  and  his  studio  is  set  amidst  the  hills 
and  trees  that  form  the  familiar  motive  of 
his  canvases. 

Davis  uses  his  landscape  forms  almost  en- 
tirely as  an  expression  of  mood.  He  paints 
not  a  tree  or  hillside  in  spring,  but  the  spirit 
of  spring  itself ;  not  the  tangled,  tawny  un- 
dergrowth of  ravines  and  woods,  but  the 
somber  quiet  of  a  day  in  fall ;  not  the  snowy 
approach  to  the  hill-top  farm,  but  the 
mystery  of  winter  with  a  hint  of  snow  in  the 
air.  And  yet,  with  all  their  spiritual  quality, 
his  pictures  are  as  solidly  substantial  as  we 
could  wish.  We  can  walk  on  Davis'  hills, 
his  rocks  have  weight,  his  trees  mass,  his 
water  depth.  He  gives  us  nature  and  the 
spirit  of  nature  at  the  same  time,  and  while 
one  could  not  exist  without  the  other,  we 
find  the  combination  all  too  rarely.  And  we 
find  it  most  often  in  the  best  of  the  work  of 
the  past  that  has  survived. 


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NIGHT 


But  while  Davis  both  now  and  for  most  of 
his  art  career  has  worked  apart  from  his 
fellow  painters,  he  has  never  been  without 
keen  interest  in  them  and  in  their  work,  and 
this  has  been  generously  reciprocated.  As 
long  ago  as  the  early  '90s  it  is  recorded  that 
when  one  of  his  pictures  came  before  the 
Jury  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design,  it 
won  the  favor  of  Inness  and  Wyant,  both 
members  of  the  hanging  committee,  who 
tried  to  secure  for  it  the  post  of  honor,  an 
effort  in  which,  it  is  further  recorded,  they 
did  not  succeed.  This  picture  was  'The 
Deepening  Shadows,"  bought  at  that  ex- 
hibition by  Thomas  B.  Clarke,  Esq.,  who 
with  Inness  was  one  of  Davis'  earliest  and 
most  cordial  supporters. 

Davis'  pictures  of  the  '80s  and  '90s  how- 
ever have  little  in  common  with  his  work  of 


Charles  H.  Davis,  N.  A. 


A  CLEARING 


today.  He  comes  of  a  thoughtful  family, — 
his  father  was  a  schoolmaster  of  the  old 
type, — and  it  is  not  surprising  that  his 
earlier  efforts  were  directed  to  a  somber  in- 
terpretation of  nature  in  her  quieter  moods. 
'The  Edge  of  the  Village,"  his  Salon  picture 
of  1883,  later  exhibited  in  this  country,  well 
reflects  the  direction  of  the  young  artist's 
mood  at  that  time.  His  first  exhibition  in 
America,  made  the  preceding  year,  when  he 
was  but  twenty-seven  years  old,  was  entirely 
composed  of  pictures  of  this  type.  But  a 
dozen  years  later  a  different  note  began  to 
appear ;  more  light,  a  higher  color-range,  and 
perhaps  a  more  joyous  spirit,  crept  into  his 
pictures.  From  then  on  they  showed  the 
presence  of  a  firmer  hand,  a  greater  strength, 
and  a  simplification  both  of  subject  and  of 
rendering.    Forsaking  the  intimate  details 


The  Macbeth  Gallery 


MAY  MORNING 


of  the  French  landscape  which  until  then 
had  dominated  his  thought,  he  devoted  his 
attention  to  the  broader  aspects  of  nature, 
to  the  moods  of  rain-filled  clouds  over  up- 
lands, to  the  song  of  birds  in  spring,  to  the 
depth  of  the  New  England  winter. 

For  Davis  is  as  versatile  in  his  subjects  as 
he  is  in  the  methods  he  uses  to  depict  them. 
For  a  time  his  cloud  motives  interested  him 
so  greatly  that  he  came  in  the  popular  mind 
to  be  associated  with  them  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  many  other  subjects  that  he  painted 
with  equal  enthusiasm.  It  is  certain  that 
this  growing  reputation  as  a  painter  of 
clouds  troubled  him,  and  perhaps  it  is  on 
that  account  that  in  recent  years  he  has 
unconsciously  devoted  more  and  more  of 
his  time  to  spring,  summer  and  winter  sub- 
jects, with  other  than  clouds  as  their  chief 


Charles  H.  Da^is,  N.  A. 


characteristic.  One  of  his  finest  successes, 
"The  Sunny  Hillside,"  which  was  awarded 
the  Corcoran  Silver  Medal  at  the  exhibition 
in  Washington  two  years  ago,  was  as  far 
from  the  type  of  picture  usually  associated 
with  his  name  as  anything  could  possibly  be. 
In  its  subtlety  of  form  and  color  it  was  a 
picture  that  Twachtman  would  have  liked, 
and  indeed  that  would  apply  to  many  of  his 
recent  efforts.  There  is  something  in  most 
of  his  more  poetic  canvases  that  uncon- 
sciously recalls  the  work  of  Twachtman's 
later  days,  though  they  are  far  from  imita- 
tive of  that  great  master's  art.  Instinctively 
we  try  to  interpret  the  new  in  the  terms  of 
what  has  gone  before,  and  it  is  to  Twacht- 
man if  to  anyone  that  we  must  turn  to  find 
Davis'  forerunner  among  the  men  of  the 
preceding  generation.  Perhaps  that  is  why 
Twachtman  admirers  have  immediately 
turned  to  Davis  with  keen  appreciation,  or 
perhaps  such  a  reaction  is  merely  the  na- 
tural association  of  quality  with  quality. 

Since  his  earliest  American  exhibition 
honors  have  come  to  Davis  wherever  his 
pictures  have  been  shown,  juries  uniting  to 
recognize  in  him  something  almost  always 
worthy  of  special  distinction.  He  is  repre- 
sented in  most  of  our  leading  museums, 
many  of  which  recognized  his  merit  some 
time  before  the  general  public  responded  to 
his  highly  individual  art.  There  has  been 
no  lack  of  substantial  appreciation  in  recent 
years,  however,  and  there  are  few  private 
collections  of  any  importance  in  which  his 
work  does  not  occupy  a  conspicuous  posi- 


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xi.v-v    \[^RII/S  HERE 


tion.  And,  at  that,  his  pictures  are  not 
fundamentally  exhibition  canvases,  as  the 
warm  place  they  take  in  many  private  homes 
that  do  not  aspire  to  the  collector's  high 
estate,  amply  indicates.  They  are  pictures 
to  be  lived  with  day  after  day  with  an  en- 
joyment that  only  a  beautiful  thing  of  the 
highest  merit  can  possibly  give. 

So  whether  Davis  belongs  at  the  top  of 
the  list  or  not  really  matters  very  little,  or 
not  at  all.  And  many  years  shall  pass  before 
we  know.  But  in  the  meantime  we  can  be 
sure  that  he  is  a  splendid  painter  and  a  very 
real  creative  artist.  Without  indulging  in 
too  fulsome  praise,  in  spite,  perhaps,  of 
strong  temptation,  let  us  be  content  to  enjoy 
him  for  what  he  means  to  us  now,  and,  like 
him,  let  time  decide  where  his  place  eventu- 
ally is  to  be. 


Biographical 


Notes 


BORN,  Amesbury,  Massachusetts,  Jan.  7,  1856. 
Pupil  of  Otto  Grundmann  and  Boston  Museum 
School;  Boulanger  and  Lefebvre,  Paris.  Member  of 
the  National  Academy  of  Design,  New  York. 

Represented  in  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  Philadelphia;  Corcoran  Gallery  of  Art, 
Washington,  D.  C.;  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art, 
New  York;  Art  Institute  of  Chicago;  Wadsworth 
Athenaeum,  Hartford;  Art  Gallery,  Omaha;  Boston 
Art  Museum ;  Art  Museum,  Syracuse ;  Art  Museum, 
Cincinnati;  City  Art  Museum,  St.  Louis;  Institute  of 
Arts,  Minneapolis,  Minn. ;  Art  Museum,  Worcester, 
Massachusetts;  Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh; 
Hackley  Gallery,  Muskegon,  Mich.;  Butler  Art  In- 
stitute, Youngstown,  Ohio;  Bruce  Art  Museum, 
Greenwich,  Conn. 

Honorable  Mention,  Salon,  Paris,  1887;  Silver 
Medal,  Exposition  Universelle,  Paris,  1889;  Palmer 
Prize,  Art  Institute  of  Chicago,  1890;  Medal,  Massa- 
chusetts Charitable  Mechanics'  Association,  Boston, 
1890;  Medal,  Columbian  Exposition,  Chicago,  1893  ; 
Grand  Gold  Medal,  Atlanta  Exposition,  1895;  Gold 
Medal,  American  Art  Association,  New  York,  1896; 
Cash  Prize,  American  Art  Association,  1897;  Potter 
Palmer  Prize,  Art  Institute  of  Chicago,  1898;  Bronze 
Medal,  Exposition  Universelle,  Paris,  1900;  Lippin- 
cott  Prize,  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts, 
Philadelphia,  1901 ;  Silver  Medal,  Pan-American  Ex- 
position, Buffalo,  1 901;  Silver  Medal,  Universal 
Exposition,  St.  Louis,  1904;  Silver  Medal,  Interna- 
tional Exposition,  1910;  Gold  Medal,  Panama- 
Pacific  Exposition,  San  Francisco,  191 5;  Second  W. 
A.  Clark  Prize  and  Corcoran  Silver  Medal,  Corcoran 
Gallery,  Washington,  1920;  Saltus  Medal,  National 
Academy  of  Design,  1921. 


0B-  £■ 


